Home › Glossary › Letter B

biblical complaint

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A lament or protest modeled on scriptural forms, especially the Psalms or prophetic books

Detailed Definition
Biblical complaint is a poetic genre rooted in scriptural tradition—particularly the Psalms and Lamentations—where the speaker voices anguish, injustice, or despair to God, often moving from lament toward hope; characterized by raw emotional honesty, rhetorical questions, and appeals for divine intervention, it serves as both personal catharsis and communal expression of suffering within a covenantal framework.
Example
Example in poetry:
Psalm 13: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” voices personal despair as divine abandonment; Lamentations 1: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!” mourns Jerusalem’s fall as God’s judgment; In “A Lament for the Makaris,” William Dunbar echoes biblical complaint: “Timor mortis conturbat me” (The fear of death disturbs me); Milton’s “On His Blindness” questions God: “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
Additional Notes
Biblical complaint (or communal lament) follows a structure: address to God, complaint, petition, vow of praise; found in Psalms, Lamentations, and prophetic books; influenced later English elegies and political poetry; distinguish from personal lament by its communal or national scope
Also Known As
Scriptural lament prophetic grievance sacred complaint biblical elegy Jeremiad
Skip to main content